Our Horse Ride -by Ava

 OUR HORSE RIDE

By Ava 

On Saturday at 3 pm, I went for a ride with my Mum. Before I asked mum if she would ride with me, we had one of Dad's friends come over for a catch-up. It was hard to convince mum to go for a ride because she had had a glass of wine while the visitors were here and she didn't want to fall off her horse. When the visitors left mum finally said to me to put the horse gear in the car. It is always my job to get her gear, as well as mine, organized. The horse my mum rides is named Beauty. She is a black mare and my horse Harley is an Arab gelding. He is grey.

When we got to the paddock I got my bridle out of the car and went through the paddock to catch my horse, Harley. I lead him back up to the gate and started to put the gear on him. Once I put the saddle on Harley and got up on top of him, I realized that something didn't feel right. I remembered prior to the ride and while the visitor was at home, I had got another horse out of the house paddock and rode him around on our lawn, bareback. The sensation of now riding in a saddle compared to bareback felt weird as the saddle made me feel so much higher than sitting straight on the horse's back. It felt so strange that I wondered if my girth needed adjusting so I got back off my horse to check.

Before I got on my horse again, mum had got on hers so I was on the job of opening gates. I walked my horse beside mums' along the road to open the first gate. After closing the gate I got back on my horse, after a wee bit of him spinning around. We had to ride across a swampy part of a paddock and then it lead to a little steep hill that we had to ride up that led to another gate. Mum leaned forward to open it and it swung wide open. Then she couldn't close it from on top of her horse because her horse is so tall so I had to get off again to close the gate. Mum can't get on and off so easily so it's easier for me to do it because I have a better saddle and also I have a smaller horse.

Then we went through some trees that lead to a pond. We found a track through the pine trees but found that one of the trees must have fallen down in the heavy winds and rain the previous day. So we had to turn around. This was a real shame as we were looking forward to getting our horses across a bridge that they didn't enjoy walking across the last time we rode that way. So instead we trotted up the hill to the cows. There was another gate that I had to get off and open and close. I got back on my horse to ride up the gravel road. On the way up the gravel road, we saw a goat in a paddock with the sheep. I think it thinks it is a sheep because it's always with them. 

After we rode up the gravel road and stopped at the neighbor's mum personal messaged him asking if we could ride through his place. We went down the hill that lead to the neighbors' house. The farm dogs were barking a lot but we kept on riding. On one of the hills that we went up, the bulldozer also had been up a few days before fixing the tracks so it was a lot safer than it was before as it used to get really slippery. Now it was softer and there was new soil that the horse's hooves could grip onto. When we got to the top of the hill we rode along the skyline. The view was amazing. We saw the whole of Karitane. We turned around to go back to the horse's paddock. when we got back we gave the horses some food and put their covers on and then we went home for dinner. We got back at about 5 pm. 

I found the ride fun because we have not gotten out of the house in a long time due to the horrible winter weather and it was good to get out in the fresh air. I also love going for rides because it's time I get away from my sisters and brothers and the noise. I also like riding horses because I can tell that my horse really enjoys it and I love being on a horse's back and sharing time with them.